Tesla may be able to meet its Model 3 production goals after all

With more than 400,000 outstanding reservations on the books for the Model 3, there’s no denying that demand for Tesla’s mass market EV is staggering. What remains unclear, however, is whether or not Tesla will be able to ramp up production in a timely manner as to prevent reservation holders from asking for a refund and simply picking up a car elsewhere.

Tesla, of course, has a bad habit of over-promising and under-delivering when it comes to production rates. Recall, Elon Musk in the build-up to the Model 3 launch was confident that production would reach 20,000 units per month by December of 2017, a goal the company didn’t even come close to reaching.

Tesla has since pushed back its 20,000 units/month production goal to the end June of 2018. Put simply, Tesla doesn’t have much time left to prove that it’s capable of sufficiently ramping up production on the Model 3.

The good news is that Model 3 production appears to be trending upwards. As part of the company’s recent earnings report, Tesla disclosed that Model 3 production towards the end of April reached 2,270 units per week, a huge improvement compared to where production stood just a few weeks earlier.

More recently, Electrek obtained an internal email from Musk which reveals that production is now hovering around 500 Model 3 units per day, a figure which would put weekly production at 3,500 units. Though still 1,500 units short of the 5,000/week goal, it does show that Tesla is making huge strides towards improving the Model 3 production line.

Musk’s email reads in part: “It is looking quite likely that we will exceed 500 vehicles per day across all Model 3 production zones this week.”

Inevitably, Tesla’s Model 3 output will be the most closely viewed item once the company posts its earnings report for the June quarter in about six weeks.